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Hello little turtle and welcome to a new Cosplay Tutorial! Today I’ll show you how to create templates starting from a very simple 3D model. But let’s start from the beginning…
IMPORTING THE 3D MODEL (OBJ)
I’ll use the program Pepakura Designer, an almost indispensable tool for creating slightly more complex armor.
Simply put, this program can break down 3D models into 2D templates that you’ll print on sheets of paper and assemble with glue sticks or tape to create the so-called Papercraft, which are paper models (1). A Papercraft, if you will, is very similar to origami (2). It only differs in the assembly method, which involves using glue.
First of all, we need a 3D model.
I’ll use as an example the bust I created for Saber Lily (3), you can download it for FREE here.
Let’s open the program.
Go to the ever-present File menu and click on Open.
Select our OBJ. Wow, there are so many! Don’t worry, Saber’s armor is made up of many small parts. To learn the program, for now, we only need to work on the bust. So let’s find the “Bust” file and import it into the program by clicking Open.
Now Pepakura Designer will ask us a few questions.
Flip the faces? We’re not interested, so click No Flip.
Which part of the object is the front? The red arrow shows the face automatically selected by Pepakura Designer; we can change it by clicking on the color of the cube face that indicates the front of the 3D model. In this case, everything is fine, so click Next.
Now we need to tell Pepakura Designer which part is the base of the object. The 3D model is correctly aligned, so I click Finish.
Now the program asks us which part is the left and which is the right. This function affects the unfolding phase, but since the object is symmetrical, it doesn’t matter in this case.
Scaling the object is essential. We should measure our bust—the real one on our body—and then enter the dimensions we want for this piece of armor right here. I’m quickly entering a hypothetical 39 cm. Later, I’ll print everything, wear the Papercraft, and check the measurements in real life, feeling the piece with my hands. It’s always possible to change the scale of the pieces, and we’ll see how later.
And here we are, ready to start the real work.
UNFOLDING PHASE: UNFOLDING
We can display two windows on the screen: the left one shows the 3D model, and the right one shows the 2D view of our object on the paper we want to use for printing. To check the paper type, just go to File and then Print and Paper settings.
Under Paper size, we find many different types of paper. A typical home printer usually only prints A4 sheets, but if you’re lucky enough to have one that can also print A3, it’s a good idea to set the latter as the paper type.
At this point, we could simply open the model, but the result would be a bit messy because Pepakura Designer wouldn’t be able to unfold the 3D model effectively without any guidance from us. Let’s give it a try and… as you can see, it’s a mess!
How do we help our best friend?
Veeeery simple!
Let’s try to figure out which features could be significant and make the construction easier.
Let’s go to the 3D view. To navigate it, use the following commands:
- The scroll wheel lets you zoom in and out on the piece
- Clicking the scroll wheel allows you to do what is called PAN in all graphics programs, meaning a horizontal and vertical movement on the workspace.
- With the right mouse button, instead, we can rotate the piece.
Let’s get back to us: what are the significant parts of our object?
Let’s go to 3D menu and select Edit Mode and then on Specify Cutline Edges., this command will allow us to select the edges we want to separate and open on the sheet of paper.
Red edges are usually edges not connected to other parts.
Hover the cursor over the edge you want to cut and click on it: it will turn orange.
Select Select Symmetrical Pair if the model is symmetrical, meaning the left side is identical to the right side. This command will speed up this work a lot.
Now let’s save the project. Pepakura projects are saved as files with the .pdo extension, and they can be opened or printed using the free Pepakura Viewer program.
Click on Unfold, a command you’ll find on the topmost bar, at the top right.
Now Pepakura Designer has used our guides to unfold and lay out the 3D model faces onto the sheets. Much clearer than before, don’t you think?
PREPARING THE PAPER PATTERNS
Let’s take a look at the pieces.
There are two types of lines: dashed lines (which should be folded) and solid lines (which indicate where to cut the piece).
If you click on a specific piece with the mouse, the corresponding area will light up in the 3D view. This feature is very useful, especially when assembling a very complex object. Through this view, you can know exactly the order in which to glue each paper pattern.
Let’s do one last precise check to see if the object’s scale might be correct or not. Right-click on the sheet and select Measure distance from two points.
Click the two points and measure.
At this point, to change the model’s size, you can go to Parts Layout and enter the dimensions again.
The program’s default layout is quite spread out, but you can rearrange the parts to use fewer sheets of paper.
I select the parts and simply move them. To take up less space, a bit of Tetris will be needed, so I’ll also need to rotate the parts. To do this, I click the green circle at the top of the selection.
Each part of the paper model, as you can see, has flaps that will be glued to the corresponding faces. We can leave them as they are, but if we need larger flaps to make gluing easier, we can change their size.
Right-click and select Edit Flaps. Here we can change them as we like.
If we’re not satisfied with the unfolded parts, we can make additional edge cuts. Just right-click and select Join/Disjoin. Select the open edges to turn them into cut lines, and select the cuts to join faces and create edges to fold.
To understand which edge connects to which, hover your cursor over an edge and Pepakura will highlight the adjacent edge. You always need to be in Join/Disjoin mode.
As soon as we are satisfied with the unfolding, we prepare the project for printing.
Go to Other and select Texture on/off to remove the blue color from our pieces.
If we want to simplify the assembly, go to the 2D menu and then Show edge ID to display the numbers of each edge. They are a bit hard to read by default, so go to Settings and then Other. Increase the number to enlarge the font size.
Save your work and proceed with printing.
Once printed, all you have to do is assemble everything as best as you can, even using tape if you don’t have a glue stick. This will allow you to handle the paper model before transferring the parts, which you’ll decide to make in foam, onto the foam roll itself.
COSPLAY TUTORIAL: THE FINAL RESULT
Creating the patterns for your Cosplay won’t be a problem anymore thanks to a simple software like Pepakura Designer. Today you’ve definitely improved your skills as a Cosmaker, congratulations!
That said, if you want to discover more about the world of Cosplay, I want to let you know that more Videos and Cosplay Tutorials are in the works. Curious? Subscribe to the newsletter or follow me on social media so you don’t miss the next blog releases!
Now I ask you: which part of the process was the most interesting? Which topic would you like to explore further? Leave me a comment with your answer. We’ll catch up in another article! Bye!
VIDEO-TUTORIAL: PEPAKURA DESIGNER
Not a fan of reading the Cosplay Tutorial article? Here’s the Video version of what’s covered on this page! I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful!